BASF Plant Science will again conduct field trials this year with genetically optimized potatoes which are undergoing the EU approval process. The field trials will take place at various sites in Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. In addition to the starch potato Modena, the company will also be planting its late blight resistant variety Fortuna. [...] Besides multiplication, the aim of the current cultivation is to test and document the performance of the potato varieties under different environmental conditions as well as the resistance characteristics of the Fortuna potato.

Testbiotech is today publishing a database designed to give an overview of the risks associated with genetically engineered plants allowed for marketing in the European Union, or being about to be authorised soon. The current version of the database, called PlantGeneRisk, gives an overview of thirteen genetically engineered crops, four soy plants and nine maize plants. Ten of these plants already have EU authorisation for use, import and usage in food and feed, one of them is also allowed for cultivation.

With the election for the German parliament looming on September 27, a recent poll suggests that political parties that don’t support agribiotech have a better chance of pulling in the votes. According to a fresh poll, about 65% of Germans are opposed to genetic engineering in food plants. [...] 41% of the 1003 surveyed poeple said that they would not vote for a political party that supports agri-biotechnology.

A majority of the members of Germany’s parliament are against the current ban of Monsanto’s genetically engineered maize Mon 810, that could not be planted this year by German farmers after Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner argued there might be effects on non-target organisms such as ladybugs. On Monday, a majority of the members of the Deutscher Bundestag rejected a motion of the German Greens to vote against EU re-authorisation of Monsanto’s Bt maize as well as against a permanent ban of Mon810 cultivation in Germany.

Due to insufficient data, it is currently impossible to carry out a final evaluation of the size and distribution of profits in terms of business and economics which have been achieved by cultivating transgenic plants in developing and emerging countries. Studies which claim to be able to do this are not backed up scientifically and are based on unstable projections. Even the case studies from China and Brazil could not improve this situation: The studies published to date on the economic results of Bt cotton cultivation in China are, for instance, based on the data from just a few years and just a few hundred hectares (out of an overall acreage of 5.5 million hectares) and demonstrate enormous fluctuations; for Brazil, no publications at all exist on the cultivation results, only estimations.

9,000 to 10,000 broiler chickens per hour are converted into food products by Gudensberg-based producer Stolle, that is 480,000 broilers per week. From the beginning of May they will be fed without genetic engineering – guaranteed – with certification. [...] One of the group’s feed mills already uses exclusively grain and soy that are planted GM-free.

Germany should reconsider its policy of permitting farmers to grow maize with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and consider banning biotech crops, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Friday. Gabriel is the second minister to raise a change of GMO policy this week, following Farm Minister Ilse Aigner’s statement she may review permission to grow MON 810 GMO maize, developed by U.S. biotech group Monsanto Co..

The leading European potato starch companies AVEBE, Emsland-Stärke, and Lyckeby Industrial demand the use of innovative technologies in agriculture. According to the starch producers, genetically optimized starch potatoes like Amflora from BASF Plant Science are good examples for such innovations. Their request has been prompted by the recent EU Commission decision from November 20, 2008 to cut the subsidies for the production of starch potatoes

Germany wants European Union member states to have the power to block genetically-modified crops in their countries, Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer said on Wednesday. Currently the EU Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, takes the decision whether genetically modified organisms (GMO) are safe and has controversially approved several GMO crops for commercial farming. [...] ’I believe that the EU member states should be able to decide themselves whether they actually want cultivation in their areas,’ Seehofer said.

A temporary sales ban on GMO-giant Monsanto’s genetically modified MON810 maize was lifted after the company agreed to extra crop monitoring in Germany, German authorities anounced. Germany had in May this year imposed a temporary ban on commercial sales of MON810 citing concerns about safety of the maize.